This video was made possible by Brilliant.
Learn for free for two months by being one of the first 200 people to sign up at https://brilliant.org/HAI/.
The US has tons of totally reasonable laws that ban things like owning a tank, having
a brown bear as a pet, owning a grenade launcher—oh wait, sorry it’s the other way around.
Your pet bear can legally do grenade launcher target practice from your tank as long as
he’s not using the tank’s radio while riding through Green Bank, West Virginia.
That would make this illegal.
You see, because of this rectangle, in Green Bank, West Virginia tank riding, grenade firing,
radio using pet bears are illegal which, frankly, I believe is a violation of our basic human
rights.
This rectangle is the United States National Radio Quiet Zone or NRQZ which exists because
right here is a super big radio telescope.
In fact, it’s the biggest movable radio telescope in the world—it’s the Green
Bank Telescope.
This baby’s got an 100 meter diameter collecting area, an equatorial mount, an off-axis paraboloid
reflector—basically, it’s a really good radio telescope.
Alright, 60 seconds of science time.
So basically, radio signals, popcorn popping microwave waves, the light coming into your
eyes right now, the UV light the sun uses to turn you into a tomato, and the x-ray the
TSA uses to look at your bombs—those are all the same thing.
I know you learned this in high school physics and are very, very smart but, to review, these
are all electromagnetic waves just at different frequencies, wave lengths, and energy levels.
Now, normal telescopes that just magnify what you can see are used to see things in space
that you can actually see but this telescope is used to see things that you can’t see
outside the range of waves that eyes can see, you see, and it turns out you can see a lot
of things in space by looking at radio waves.
You can detect stars, find gravitational waves, look for water on comets, find aliens, (but
like actually) but they don’t need the wifi you use to order Weetabix getting in the way
so that’s why this rectangle exists—to make sure that as few other radio waves are
around the telescope so it has the best chance to detect the radio waves from space.
You might notice that this is a big rectangle and it is, it’s bigger than Belgium, but
wifi isn’t banned in all of it.
For most of the zone there are just restrictions that prevent radio stations and other broadcasters
from using high powered transmitters.
The next level of restrictions are circle shaped, like the earth!
At ten miles out you’re not allowed to use anything emitting more than nine microvolts
per meter, at nine miles out you’re not allowed to use anything emitting more than
eight microvolts per meter, then seven microvolts, six, and so on and so forth until here, two
miles out, where you’re not allowed to use anything that emits radio waves that would
get in the way of the telescope including wifi, cell phones, and microwave ovens.
The town of Green Bank falls within these restrictions and these ten to two mile circles
are also about where you start to see cell service disappear.
These restrictions are also actual law—they’re in the West Virginia Code—and breaking them
results in actual consequences.
For each day someone uses a violating piece of electronics within the zone they’re fined
$50 but as you get closer to the satellite, the restrictions get even more restrictive.
Within this zone, the area where most of the telescope’s employees live, anything wireless
is prohibited.
Any other electronics have to be in shielded rooms that will prevent radio waves from escaping.
Then, finally, this area is the most restrictive.
No electronics are allowed unless they’re necessary and approved by the observatory.
More interestingly, only diesel powered cars are allowed as the spark plugs in gas motors
emit trace amounts of radio waves.
Most interestingly, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
Given the rather unique laws, some rather unique people have flocked to Green Bank.
We’re not talking about Canadians, we’re talking about electrosensitives.
About a third of the town’s residents are these electrosensitives—people who believe
that radio waves make them sick.
The scientific proof for the legitimacy of such an illness is about as limited as the
proof that Elon Musk isn’t two twelve-year-olds in a trench-coat but still, Green Bank is
a haven for those who want to avoid electromagnetic waves.
It’s about the only inhabited, modern place in the world with so few electromagnetic waves
in the air.
There are only a few things I can think of more crazy than believing that electromagnetic
waves, which have existed since the beginning of the universe, make you sick among them
being living in Jacksonville, Florida, believing juice is good for you, and not having a brilliant.org
account.
There’s honestly so much relevant to this video you can learn like about radio waves
and how light works but there’s also a whole course on astronomy from which you can learn
the fundamentals of this fascinating field.
Brilliant is the best place to learn complex topics like astronomy because they break down
these topics into easily understandable bites explained through graphics, simple explanations,
and thought-provoking questions.
They make the complex simple.
They also have loads of other great courses and you can take any of them, for free, for
two months by being one of the first 200 people to sign up at https://brilliant.org/HAI/.